Housing body works to open door to more Protestants

THE two DUP candidates in the North West in the forthcoming Westminster elections have given a guarded welcome to the news that the Housing Executive has launched a Management Trainee Recruitment exercise and have specifically underlined the fact that the organisation has an under representation of Protestants.

Gregory Campbell MP the candidate for East Londonderry and Maurice Devenney the candidate for Foyle said: “For many years our Party has highlighted the facts regarding the religious breakdown in the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. There are two relevant and important sets of statistics that have to be considered.

“The first is the overall balance of their workforce and the second is the ratio of those currently being recruited. The Housing Executive has an overall workforce which has been consistently less than 50% Protestant, of more concern is the fact that in recent years the recruitment ratio for Protestants has been around or UNDER 40%. In effect what this means is that an organisation which employs 3,500 people from all over Northern Ireland and should therefore have an approximate religious breakdown close to the Country’s ratio of about 55% Protestant has less than that and for those beginning employment the pattern rather than improving, is getting worse!

“It is this factual evidence that the DUP have consistently raised both with the Housing Executive, its sponsor Department DSD, and with the Equality Commission. According to the NIHE they are now recruiting Management Trainees and they are in correspondence with a number of bodies having said it ;wishes to increase the proportion of applications for employment from members of the Protestant community, as this sector is currently under-represented within parts of our workforce’.”